Important Banking Terms

RBI – The Reserve Bank of India is the apex bank of the country, which was constituted under the RBI Act, 1934 to regulate the other banks, issue of bank notes and maintenance of reserves with a view to securing the monetary stability in India.

Demand Deposit – A Demand deposit is the one which can be withdrawn at any time, without any notice or penalty; e.g. money deposited in a checking account or savings account in a bank.

Time Deposit – Time deposit is a money deposit at a banking institution that cannot be withdrawn for a certain “term” or period of time. When the term is over it can be withdrawn or it can be held for another term.

Fixed Deposits – FDs are the deposits that are repayable on fixed maturity date along with the principal and agreed interest rate for the period. Banks pay higher interest rates on FDs than the savings bank account.

Recurring Deposits – These are also called cumulative deposits and in recurring deposit accounts, a certain amounts of savings are required to be compulsorily deposited at specific intervals for a specified period.

Savings Account – Savings account is an account generally maintained by retail customers that deposit money (i.e. their savings) and can withdraw them whenever they need. Funds in these accounts are subjected to low rates of interest.

Current Accounts – These accounts are maintained by the corporate clients that may be operated any number of times in a day. There is a maintenance charge for the current accounts for which the holders enjoy facilities of easy handling, overdraft facility etc.

FCNR Accounts – Foreign Currency Non-Resident accounts are the ones that are maintained by the NRIs in foreign currencies like USD, DM, and GBP etc. The account is a term deposit with interest rates linked to the international rates of interest of the respective currencies.

NRE Accounts – Non-Resident External accounts are the ones in which NRIs remit money in any permitted foreign currency and the remittance is converted to Indian rupees for credit to NRE accounts. The accounts can be in the form of current, saving, FDs, recurring deposits. The interest rates and other terms of these accounts are as per the RBI directives.

Cheque Book – A small, bound booklet of cheques. A cheque is a piece of paper produced by your bank with your account number, sort-code and cheque number printed on it. The account number distinguishes your account from other accounts; the sort-code is your bank’s special code which distinguishes it from any other bank.

Cheque Clearing – This is the process of getting the money from the cheque-writer’s account into the cheque receiver’s account.

Clearing Bank – This is a bank that can clear funds between banks. For general purposes, this is any institution which we know of as a bank or as a provider of banking services.

Bounced Cheque – when the bank has not enough funds in the relevant account or the account holder requests that the cheque is bounced (under exceptional circumstances) then the bank will return the cheque to the account holder.

Credit Rating – This is the rating which an individual (or company) gets from the credit industry. This is obtained by the individual’s credit history, the details of which are available from specialist organisations like CRISIL in India.

Credit-Worthiness – This is the judgement of an organization which is assessing whether or not to take a particular individual on as a customer. An individual might be considered credit-worthy by one organisation but not by another. Much depends on whether an organization is involved with high risk customers or not.

Interest – The amount paid or charged on money over time. If you borrow money interest will be charged on the loan. If you invest money, interest will be paid (where appropriate to the investment).